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Series Talk: Round 1 - Battle of FLA Part 4 - Panthers Lead 2-0

Add me to the camp of the officially worried. The last couple of months have been pretty poor and I can't remember a stretch the whole season where we really looked dominant or blew teams out of the water. Add to that giving the lightning the psychological advantage and momentum coming into round 1... Suddenly turning it all on with a bunch of guys returning the lineup with rust isn't a piece of cake.
 
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Manc Cat said:
Add me to the camp of the officially worried. The last couple of months have been pretty poor and I can't remember a stretch the whole season where we really looked dominant or blew teams out of the water. Add to that giving the lightning the psychological advantage and momentum coming into round 1... Suddenly turning it all on with a bunch of guys returning the lineup with rust isn't a piece of cake.
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Tell me more about this psychological edge like you never watched the end of the 21 or 22 season.
 
I mentioned this on the main board but I'm thinking a toss up between Tampa in 6 or Florida in 7. I'm confident we'd get better as the series goes along but that might not be enough time before we're out of it: the main issue is whether we can grind it out for those games.

I do think it's interesting that most hockey analysts still seem to rate us really highly as contenders: I obviously love to hear it but I'm worried that it's partly recency bias and partly how great our roster in theory - without taking into account how we've been playing for most of the year and the injuries/wear & tear. But that's giving me at least some hope.

From the last Hockey PDO cast - listen from 12.20 where Filipovic still rates us the best team in the league. He does make interesting points about keeping Mackie on the first line and Marchand on the third, and splitting up Barkov and Forsling pair on defensive assignments.

 
It’s not the end of the world if we go down in the first round. A nice long summer to recover from a million injuries and regain the mental fire to torch the league next year. We left at least 10 wins on the table in the regular season by some combination of injury and mental will/hangover.
 
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Well, finally playoff hockey is here.

I honestly don't have a good feeling about this one, but if we manage to come out on top against Tampa with some of our key guys missing a game or two and likely not at 100% when they join the lineup, then I'll be pretty confident in whoever we face going forward, at least till the SCF.


it will be a real shame if we're knocked out in the 1st round. Cause I feel like this group at their full potential when you look at the new additions, is just as good as last year's team, It just hasn't all come together for them.
 
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I think the Panthers are going to surprise in a positive way. The rest periods are going to pay off. Also I think Maurice is playing his psychological game by saying he doesn’t really know MT’s status… he knows, just not telling. That’s exactly what Cooper did with Kuch a few seasons ago and then Kuch came back in dominant form and got the McDavid trophy.
 
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KW said:
I think the Panthers are going to surprise in a positive way. The rest periods are going to pay off. Also I think Maurice is playing his psychological game by saying he doesn’t really know MT’s status… he knows, just not telling. That’s exactly what Cooper did with Kuch a few seasons ago and then Kuch came back in dominant form and got the McDavid trophy.
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1744807448246.jpeg
 
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Some analysis from The Athletic comparing the playoff teams against past champions - we're actually second after Tampa (grrr) in those metrics:
www.nytimes.com

Stanley Cup Checklist 2.0: Analyzing the rosters of the NHL playoff teams

Here's a look at the 16 teams separated into five tiers based on how many boxes they tick on the new-and-improved Cup Checklist.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Our section for behind the paywall


1744807627282.png



What works

No team enters the playoffs without one ‘exception to the rule’ but Florida is close if you average out Gustav Forsling’s two boxes. That bodes well for their hopes of going back-to-back. Hockey is a strong link game and it pays to have a high quantity of those strong links. Mission accomplished for Florida.

Between Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart, the Panthers might have the best big three in hockey. And their forward depth after that is stupid good. Brad Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett are a nice combo in the top six. On the third line, the combination of Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen offers a lot of defensive peace of mind.

With Sergei Bobrosvky looking solid, the Panthers look like they’ll be very tough to knock off.

What doesn’t

If we have to nitpick, it’s probably with Florida’s top four — which already sounds silly given who occupies it.

Mainly, the issue is the team’s defensive game after Forsling. Aaron Ekblad has seen a real drop-off there and while Mikkola is a rock, his Defensive Rating does pale in comparison to the other shutdown defenders from years past. Last year that role went to Ekblad as Brandon Montour filled the scoring defenseman role. With Ekblad regressing, Mikkola shifts up where he doesn’t quite stack up. Even as a ‘defensive defenseman,’ Ekblad’s game doesn’t stack up to past players, though he at least makes up for it with his offense.

The Panthers can probably get away with that with offense being the team’s source of strength this year. But it does mean Florida will only have two real defensive needle-movers in the top four this year. Will that be enough against the offensive firepower in Tampa Bay and Toronto?
 
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IdleTraveller said:
Some analysis from The Athletic comparing the playoff teams against past champions - we're actually second after Tampa (grrr) in those metrics:
www.nytimes.com

Stanley Cup Checklist 2.0: Analyzing the rosters of the NHL playoff teams

Here's a look at the 16 teams separated into five tiers based on how many boxes they tick on the new-and-improved Cup Checklist.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Our section for behind the paywall


View attachment 1015169


What works

No team enters the playoffs without one ‘exception to the rule’ but Florida is close if you average out Gustav Forsling’s two boxes. That bodes well for their hopes of going back-to-back. Hockey is a strong link game and it pays to have a high quantity of those strong links. Mission accomplished for Florida.

Between Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart, the Panthers might have the best big three in hockey. And their forward depth after that is stupid good. Brad Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett are a nice combo in the top six. On the third line, the combination of Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen offers a lot of defensive peace of mind.

With Sergei Bobrosvky looking solid, the Panthers look like they’ll be very tough to knock off.

What doesn’t

If we have to nitpick, it’s probably with Florida’s top four — which already sounds silly given who occupies it.

Mainly, the issue is the team’s defensive game after Forsling. Aaron Ekblad has seen a real drop-off there and while Mikkola is a rock, his Defensive Rating does pale in comparison to the other shutdown defenders from years past. Last year that role went to Ekblad as Brandon Montour filled the scoring defenseman role. With Ekblad regressing, Mikkola shifts up where he doesn’t quite stack up. Even as a ‘defensive defenseman,’ Ekblad’s game doesn’t stack up to past players, though he at least makes up for it with his offense.

The Panthers can probably get away with that with offense being the team’s source of strength this year. But it does mean Florida will only have two real defensive needle-movers in the top four this year. Will that be enough against the offensive firepower in Tampa Bay and Toronto?
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pretty cool, thanks for sharing, metrics match up to what ive seen on ice quite well except i think Bennetts offense score should be way higher.

But lookin at Chuckys offense score, holy shit im surprised we finished 3rd.

If he comes back and this team can fire on all cylinders - this will be a great matchup and whoever wins goes to the SCF
 
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If they split in Tampa for Ekblad's return they win in 6 and maybe even 5.

This Tampa team has all the makings of a regular season giant that collapses in the playoffs. I truly do not understand the fear in this group when we dummied this near exact team just a year ago.
 
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ProjectPanthers said:
If they split in Tampa for Ekblad's return they win in 6 and maybe even 5.

This Tampa team has all the makings of a regular season giant that collapses in the playoffs. I truly do not understand the fear in this group when we dummied this near exact team just a y
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ProjectPanthers said:
If they split in Tampa for Ekblad's return they win in 6 and maybe even 5.

This Tampa team has all the makings of a regular season giant that collapses in the playoffs. I truly do not understand the fear in this group when we dummied this near exact team just a year ago.
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This fanbase was abused really badly for a really long time. You can't really undo that in 1 championship run. We will always be waiting for the collapse.
 
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ProjectPanthers said:
If they split in Tampa for Ekblad's return they win in 6 and maybe even 5.

This Tampa team has all the makings of a regular season giant that collapses in the playoffs. I truly do not understand the fear in this group when we dummied this near exact team just a year ago.
Click to expand...

I think that the Panthers will take this series in 6 just because Ekbad and maybe MT too are sidelined for the first 2 games. The guys have played such an uninspiring brand of hockey for the past two months that leads me to believe that they're just waiting for the playoffs to begin.
 
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Jean Luc Discard said:
I think that the Panthers will take this series in 6 just because Ekbad and maybe MT too are sidelined for the first 2 games. The guys have played such an uninspiring brand of hockey for the past two months that leads me to believe that they're just waiting for the playoffs to begin.
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BREAKING: JLD predicts positive result for Panthers
 
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